Bit'O'Gristle:You know, I was struck by the senselessness of this shooting, and even though i don't know the victims personally, or the survivors, i felt a deep sense of sadness and empathy not only for the slain, but the wounded and their families. Once denial is over for them, they try to make sense of this crime, it's what we do, we look for some reason, some logic that would put this kind of tragedy in its place in our minds. But sadly, there is no sense, nowhere you can shove this incident and file it away under "oh..ok..that makes sense now."

To use this tragedy for a political or religious slant is beyond trolling, it's inhuman. If you have noticed, even the politicians have not jumped on the "OMG...GET RID OF ALL GUNS" platform. Because they would be vilified by the public for using this for a personal agenda for their beliefs, and people don't forget that shiat. It's not the guns fault this person did this..it was his insanity. If it had not been a gun, it would have been a bomb, or something else.

This "church" is a small group of attention whores, who HOPE someone does something to them, that they would then be able to take to court and sue. They crave attention and cash, and that is all, and aren't above doing or saying anything to get it. Deny them this. Ignore them and they will fade away eventually.

That being said, my families hearts go out to the victims and their families, and we hope that time will heal them. I hope that quick and fair justice is done to the shooter.

You're right about not using this to further polarize our political environment, but this just sticks out as stupid. It was guns, and tear gas, and more combat weaponry, ok? Let's not sugar coat this shiat because some right-wingers might get their panties in a twist over the fear of gun control laws.

It was guns. The shooter? Yeah, he shot with guns. He didn't roll into that theater and toss cupcakes and tickle everyone with feathers, he lobbed tear gas and then shot the place up.

It was a cold-blooded killer, armed with guns, who is responsible for this crime. Don't let that little tidbit get lost in the wave of grief everyone is experiencing.

ecmoRandomNumbers:strangeluck: I don't know if I believe in heaven or hell, but for people like Westboro members, I really hope there is a hell. Cause they deserve to be roasting in it.

Forget about heaven and hell, I'd just like to see some karma. Is that too much to ask?

One doesn't exist without the other. You can't not believe in an afterlife and then believe in some form of cosmic justice. Either we live in a cold harsh reality, or we don't. It doesn't go both ways.

Please talk to your staff - don't greenlight anymore WBC threads. Let the 1st Amendment live long and prosper, but let's not give the AW of WBC the attention they crave. If you want to see their behavior change, ignore them - send the message that this is NOT acceptable.

Thanks,

Alassra

"I like the First Amendment, but I don't want THOSE people using it. They're nasty. Thanks!"

=============Nope, they are free to use the 1st Amendment like the rest of us, but they don't need to get attention for it. See the difference?

yeegrek:what's odd is that a huge part of their MO is to piss people off until someone slugs them, then they act like a European soccer player, rolling on the ground and screaming as though someone clubbed them with a tire iron....pause to savour the thought....and we're back, and then sue everyone. And I mean everyone, the aggressor, the cops, the city. It's a large part of their funding.

In the UK one can be added to a list of vexatious serial litigants, where any proposed legal proceedings must first be approved by a judge. Is there no similar system in the US?

They tell someone they are going to protest an event.People plan huge counter protests.Counter protests make headlines.WBC gets publicity without having to do anything.

Just ignore them and they will eventually go away.

BUT How do they make money doing this?I though their MO was to troll people into legally questionable acts against WBC, Sue them, them settle out of court for $$.How else could they fund their little hate group?

Arkham:Funny how no one really cared about the WBC when they were protesting gay funerals. People only got pissed once they turned their attention to the military and the tragedy of the day.

Wha? farking everyone had a problem with them as soon as they heard about them. They just never heard about them until they started protesting military funerals, but you can blame that on the media, not they people outside KS who never even heard of the bastards.

Fry's 100th Cup of Coffee:Bit'O'Gristle: You know, I was str.....It was guns. The shooter? Yeah, he shot with guns. He didn't roll into that theater and toss cupcakes and tickle everyone with feathers, he lobbed tear gas and then shot the place up.

It was a cold-blooded killer, armed with guns, who is responsible for this crime. Don't let that little tidbit get lost in the wave of grief everyone is experiencing.

Are you saying that banning guns would prevent people from committing mass murder and terrorism?If so, history would disagree. For example:

Tim McVeigh didn't use guns. He used diesel fuel and fertilizer.You want to ban those too. What are we going to move freight with?What about the 9-11 hijackers? Not a single firearm amongst them. Shall we ban airplanes?People die because of cars everyday and yet we still drive.

IF the Aurora killer had wanted to kill people and he didn't have legal access to guns he could have got them on the black market or made a bomb. If you want to kill people, you don't HAVE to have a gun and banning guns will not prevent those intent on evil from carrying it out.

Can we create a self-imposed moratorium on WBC greenlights? Greening only encourages them. Yes, I know people will bring up Free SpeechTM, but shouting about them does nothing. I'm not asking for a blanket "no greens for hate groups" or "groups we don't like." Just WBC.

As my grandmother used to say "You have every right to say anything you like. And I have every right to marginalize the fark out of you." The only way to marginalize is to give them less press. And fark is throwing tons of traffic to sites that give them press. Less greenlights = less traffic to the sites that cover them = sites less interested in covering them.

Because sitting at your computer being rude to strangers is productive. C'mon, don't be a dick.

/atheist

Am I being a dick? Yea.Did I say I was being productive? No.

It's just one more example of one side hypocritically saying they'll do something productive. I don't care if they're good people or do good things, I just don't want them to think they are actually doing something of value when they're not.

And just because I like the series ....

"We're out here, 40 klicks in enemy lines, and this man of God here, he's a farkin' POG (personnel other than grunt). In fact, he's an officer POG. That's one more layer of bureaucracy and unnecessary logistics, one more asshole we need to supply MREs and baby wipes for. And worst of all, worst of all, the motherfarker doesn't even carry a weapon. When push comes to shove even Rolling Stone (hippy) picks up a gun but this farkin' shill of God, he can't cover a sector, he'll never hump ammo or Claymores. This is a farkin' war and we're here as warriors, so on top of everything else that's expected of us do we really need to drag him along and indulge in this make-believe bullshiat?" - Sergeant Brad 'Iceman' Colbert

Please talk to your staff - don't greenlight anymore WBC threads. Let the 1st Amendment live long and prosper, but let's not give the AW of WBC the attention they crave. If you want to see their behavior change, ignore them - send the message that this is NOT acceptable.

Thanks,

Alassra

"I like the First Amendment, but I don't want THOSE people using it. They're nasty. Thanks!"

Regardless, she's correct. If you ignore them, they would go away.

This is made entirely implausible by the vast majority of media outlets being financially motivated by a juicy story, of course. But she's correct. If you'd never heard of these people, if the media wasn't constantly responding to them, they would eventually disperse.

I'm not saying that the Westboro Baptist Church and Fred Phelps are trying to take our guns away. I'm just saying that they haven't denied it. And people must be trying to take our guns away, look at all the gun sales. They must answer these accusations.

Bit'O'Gristle:You know, I was struck by the senselessness of this shooting, and even though i don't know the victims personally, or the survivors, i felt a deep sense of sadness and empathy not only for the slain, but the wounded and their families. Once denial is over for them, they try to make sense of this crime, it's what we do, we look for some reason, some logic that would put this kind of tragedy in its place in our minds. But sadly, there is no sense, nowhere you can shove this incident and file it away under "oh..ok..that makes sense now."

<-----Stopped reading here.

See, there's the problem: People just toss their hands up and say "This was senseless". No, you just choose not to delve further and figure out why this guy did what he did. People don't want to hear that it's possible that he had some motive, or even no motive at all. I suppose, to quote a recent Batman movie, "Some people just want to watch the world burn". That is to say, he did it "just because he could". Either way, a decision was made to do this and to shut your eyes and plug your ears and shout, "THIS WAS A SENSELESS ACT!! LA LA LA LA!!!!" is, well, senseless.

Now, I'm not saying that anyone should coddle this guy or tell him, "aw, you had a bad experience and you shouldn't be blamed for this". No, he should be blamed for his actions. All I'm interested in is why. What actually happened to him to make this seem a reasonable response, or something to do? What can be done to address this in others? Is there anything that can be done to keep this from happening again? Regardless of you or my ability to comprehend his decision making and/or logic, there is a reason he did this, and it made sense to him. So, what is it?

IAMTHEINTARWEBS:Fry's 100th Cup of Coffee: Bit'O'Gristle: You know, I was str.....It was guns. The shooter? Yeah, he shot with guns. He didn't roll into that theater and toss cupcakes and tickle everyone with feathers, he lobbed tear gas and then shot the place up.

It was a cold-blooded killer, armed with guns, who is responsible for this crime. Don't let that little tidbit get lost in the wave of grief everyone is experiencing.

Are you saying that banning guns would prevent people from committing mass murder and terrorism?If so, history would disagree. For example:

Tim McVeigh didn't use guns. He used diesel fuel and fertilizer.You want to ban those too. What are we going to move freight with?What about the 9-11 hijackers? Not a single firearm amongst them. Shall we ban airplanes?People die because of cars everyday and yet we still drive.

IF the Aurora killer had wanted to kill people and he didn't have legal access to guns he could have got them on the black market or made a bomb. If you want to kill people, you don't HAVE to have a gun and banning guns will not prevent those intent on evil from carrying it out.

What's your point, Vanessa? Are you going to say next that if he'd really wanted to he could have hopped over the seats and stabbed everyone in the jugular with a spork in the absence of firearms? If you ban diesel, trucks don't move. If you ban airplanes, airplanes don't move. If you ban certain firearms and make others require a more rigorous process to obtain.... psychos planning a massacre have a harder time stocking their doomsday arsenals?

Oh that's right, no one ever talks about banning guns and neither did I. The argument always plays out as if any amount of gun "control" is tantamount to disarming and enslaving the citizenry.

Learn the difference between "control" and "ban", and then figure out how that could be applied to psychotic people planning massacres with items they picked up legally at your local mom and pop gun store.

Please talk to your staff - don't greenlight anymore WBC threads. Let the 1st Amendment live long and prosper, but let's not give the AW of WBC the attention they crave. If you want to see their behavior change, ignore them - send the message that this is NOT acceptable.

Thanks,

Alassra

Don't click on the link or comment in the thread. Things that don't get pageviews don't go green. Things that are basically assured to go over 100 comments always go green.

Please talk to your staff - don't greenlight anymore WBC threads. Let the 1st Amendment live long and prosper, but let's not give the AW of WBC the attention they crave. If you want to see their behavior change, ignore them - send the message that this is NOT acceptable.

Thanks,

Alassra

"I like the First Amendment, but I don't want THOSE people using it. They're nasty. Thanks!"

Regardless, she's correct. If you ignore them, they would go away.

This is made entirely implausible by the vast majority of media outlets being financially motivated by a juicy story, of course. But she's correct. If you'd never heard of these people, if the media wasn't constantly responding to them, they would eventually disperse.

What's your point, Vanessa? Are you going to say next that if he'd really wanted to he could have hopped over the seats and stabbed everyone in the jugular with a spork in the absence of firearms?

No. I never said that and you never said you were in favor of a ban.

If you ban diesel, trucks don't move. If you ban airplanes, airplanes don't move. And yet you can use them to kill many more people in less time than firearms.

If you ban certain firearms and make others require a more rigorous process to obtain.... psychos planning a massacre have a harder time stocking their doomsday arsenals?More rigorous how?

Oh that's right, no one ever talks about banning guns and neither did I.UMMM, yes you did. Re-read your previous sentence. You pretty plainly advocate banning certain firearms. Which would those be?

The argument always plays out as if any amount of gun "control" is tantamount to disarming and enslaving the citizenry.

Learn the difference between "control" and "ban", and then figure out how that could be applied to psychotic people planning massacres with items they picked up legally at your local mom and pop gun store.Or items picked up at their local mom and pop farm store.

Snark/attitude hurts your argument by turning off those your are discussing the issue with. If you want those on the opposite side of an issue to at least listen to what you are trying to convince them of, you should refrain from using them. Especially on emotionally charged issues.

Add all the laws you want to gun purchases and sales, it won't stop mass murder from happening.

That said, I am in favor of added gun control. I understand the difference between "ban" and "control" just fine. I think that guns should have titles, like cars and each transfer of ownership should be required to be recorded with the gov't. I also don't mind a waiting period (like handguns) for firearms purchases.

GAT_00:ecmoRandomNumbers: strangeluck: I don't know if I believe in heaven or hell, but for people like Westboro members, I really hope there is a hell. Cause they deserve to be roasting in it.

Forget about heaven and hell, I'd just like to see some karma. Is that too much to ask?

If you want karma, go to Reddit. The real world doesn't work that way, and what's more, you should be thankful the WBC is "allowed" to protest, because it still gives a faint glimmer of hope that free speech isn't dead. Of course, I'm not convinced a group that didn't call themselves Christian would be allowed free speech with identical acts, but still.

Even reddit doesn't work that way. It works just like the real world: nepostic croneyism and self-validation earn you brownie-points with other people.

What's your point, Vanessa? Are you going to say next that if he'd really wanted to he could have hopped over the seats and stabbed everyone in the jugular with a spork in the absence of firearms?

No. I never said that and you never said you were in favor of a ban.

If you ban diesel, trucks don't move. If you ban airplanes, airplanes don't move.And yet you can use them to kill many more people in less time than firearms.

If you ban certain firearms and make others require a more rigorous process to obtain.... psychos planning a massacre have a harder time stocking their doomsday arsenals?More rigorous how?

Oh that's right, no one ever talks about banning guns and neither did I.UMMM, yes you did. Re-read your previous sentence. You pretty plainly advocate banning certain firearms. Which would those be?

The argument always plays out as if any amount of gun "control" is tantamount to disarming and enslaving the citizenry.

Learn the difference between "control" and "ban", and then figure out how that could be applied to psychotic people planning massacres with items they picked up legally at your local mom and pop gun store.Or items picked up at their local mom and pop farm store.

Snark/attitude hurts your argument by turning off those your are discussing the issue with. If you want those on the opposite side of an issue to at least listen to what you are trying to convince them of, you should refrain from using them. Especially on emotionally charged issues.

Add all the laws you want to gun purchases and sales, it won't stop mass murder from happening.

That said, I am in favor of added gun control. I understand the difference between "ban" and "control" just fine. I think that guns should have titles, like cars and each transfer of ownership should be required to be recorded with the gov't. I also don't mind a waiting period (like handgu ...

Pretty clearly that gun control laws would help curtail things like this. If you interpret the 2nd amendment to mean anyone can have a gun (or just about any other armament) without any other laws controlling their acquisition, then you accept that anyone can include mass murderers, the mentally disabled, known criminals, etc.

Conversely, if you don't feel comfortable with the idea that any mass murderer, crackpot, criminal, or psycho can walk into Wal-Mart and pick up guns and ammo, or go to any gun show and buy just about whatever the hell they want, perhaps you'd be in favor of some gun control laws?

Your initial defense was essentially that if the guy hadn't had a gun, he'd use a bomb. Ok, so what? If not a bomb, then a knife? Perhaps something else? But we're not talking about what he could have committed this massacre with, we're talking about what he did commit this massacre with. You seem to think gun control wouldn't have helped if he's determined enough to commit the crime, but I posit that the harder it is for guys like this to obtain private arsenals like he is known to have acquired, the safer we all are.

Please talk to your staff - don't greenlight anymore WBC threads. Let the 1st Amendment live long and prosper, but let's not give the AW of WBC the attention they crave. If you want to see their behavior change, ignore them - send the message that this is NOT acceptable.

Thanks,

Alassra

Hate to say, but Fark isn't here to judge or censor. That is one thing that confuses the heck out of the political types complaining about favortism.

GBB:Bit'O'Gristle: You know, I was struck by the senselessness of this shooting, and even though i don't know the victims personally, or the survivors, i felt a deep sense of sadness and empathy not only for the slain, but the wounded and their families. Once denial is over for them, they try to make sense of this crime, it's what we do, we look for some reason, some logic that would put this kind of tragedy in its place in our minds. But sadly, there is no sense, nowhere you can shove this incident and file it away under "oh..ok..that makes sense now." <-----Stopped reading here.

See, there's the problem: People just toss their hands up and say "This was senseless". No, you just choose not to delve further and figure out why this guy did what he did. People don't want to hear that it's possible that he had some motive, or even no motive at all. I suppose, to quote a recent Batman movie, "Some people just want to watch the world burn". That is to say, he did it "just because he could". Either way, a decision was made to do this and to shut your eyes and plug your ears and shout, "THIS WAS A SENSELESS ACT!! LA LA LA LA!!!!" is, well, senseless.

Now, I'm not saying that anyone should coddle this guy or tell him, "aw, you had a bad experience and you shouldn't be blamed for this". No, he should be blamed for his actions. All I'm interested in is why. What actually happened to him to make this seem a reasonable response, or something to do? What can be done to address this in others? Is there anything that can be done to keep this from happening again? Regardless of you or my ability to comprehend his decision making and/or logic, there is a reason he did this, and it made sense to him. So, what is it?

/Can't answer that question, and he was obviously so full of the stupid and drugs at the hearing that he probably couldn't respond to his own name. I don't think there is ANYTHING we can do to stop someone from going completely bugshiat. Ya, maybe the guy was weird, and you would get a bad feeling after talking to him, but obviously nobody ever got the "charles whitman" feeling from him. People just snap, and we can make all the gun laws we want, and all the background checks, but in the end, people are just going to go full retard sometimes. Yes, in certain circumstances there have been signs, like in the Virgina state shooting. But i don't believe even in that incident there were clear "signs" that he was going to go all rambo. People just thought he was a loner and weird. That's not a reportable crime last time i checked.

Fry's 100th Cup of Coffee:Bit'O'Gristle: You know, I was struck by the senselessness of this shooting, and even though i don't know the victims personally, or the survivors, i felt a deep sense of sadness and empathy not only for the slain, but the wounded and their families. Once denial is over for them, they try to make sense of this crime, it's what we do, we look for some reason, some logic that would put this kind of tragedy in its place in our minds. But sadly, there is no sense, nowhere you can shove this incident and file it away under "oh..ok..that makes sense now."

To use this tragedy for a political or religious slant is beyond trolling, it's inhuman. If you have noticed, even the politicians have not jumped on the "OMG...GET RID OF ALL GUNS" platform. Because they would be vilified by the public for using this for a personal agenda for their beliefs, and people don't forget that shiat. It's not the guns fault this person did this..it was his insanity. If it had not been a gun, it would have been a bomb, or something else.

This "church" is a small group of attention whores, who HOPE someone does something to them, that they would then be able to take to court and sue. They crave attention and cash, and that is all, and aren't above doing or saying anything to get it. Deny them this. Ignore them and they will fade away eventually.

That being said, my families hearts go out to the victims and their families, and we hope that time will heal them. I hope that quick and fair justice is done to the shooter.

You're right about not using this to further polarize our political environment, but this just sticks out as stupid. It was guns, and tear gas, and more combat weaponry, ok? Let's not sugar coat this shiat because some right-wingers might get their panties in a twist over the fear of gun control laws.

It was guns. The shooter? Yeah, he shot with guns. He didn't roll into that theater and toss cupcakes and tickle everyone with feathers, he lobbed tear gas and then sho ...

/yes, it was guns, you're right, and he could have easily brought in 5 semiautomatic handguns with extended clips, and reloads. The AR-15 he was using had a 100 round drum magazine which i believe jammed his rifle up, and he did most of his killing with the handguns he had. It doesn't matter, he wanted to kill, and he had the tools. If it had not been guns, he would have looked up on the internet how to make a bomb, or set fire to the theater after locking the exit doors, or just taken his car and rolled over a bunch of people coming out. You're blaming the tool he used just like other people, and not blaming the suspect.